Brighter, Happier, Funner
by Arisa Aihara
Summary: .::You, uh, stand on the wrong side of the bridge every five thirty in the morning or something?::. Just when everything starts to go downhill, this weird stranger comes up to her. And 'funner' isn't a word.


**Warning: **This fic includes the F word, frozen yogurt, and dangling off the wrong side of a bridge.

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><p>"You sure you wanna do that?"<p>

Turning to her left, she saw a guy walking towards her steadily. Dirty blond hair, sunglasses blocking his eyes, a cigarette between his lips, and he was thickly dressed. It was a cold day, after all, but she had been too occupied with her emotions to even notice that she was shivering. The chilly wind blew her hair across her face – she wanted to tuck the wild stands of hair away, but dared not to let go of the railing.

The dude was now standing right next to her, casually leaning against the railing as he gave her a once-over. "Did you sleep walk all the way here or something? You know you're in your night gown, right?"

She sobbed a little, blinked at the guy and then at the sight before her. "Who – who are you?" she managed to choke out.

The Dude (that was the name her brain had given to this total stranger) took a long drag on his cigarette, exhaled calmly, and glanced past the railing. "Just a passerby," he said presently, looking at her calmly. Perhaps the confusion in her eyes had become apparent, because after a moment, he took off his shades (his eyes were a pair of shocking blue _gemstones, _really, how could someone be allowed to have eyes such as those?) and pocketed them before saying, "I'm Takeru. Or Teeks, or TK – call me whatever you want, really. But I'm Teeks. Hi."

She blinked once or twice, frowned, and turned away from this Teeks Dude. "I don't – I don't know you."

"Yeah, I know. I don't know you, too," said Teeks as he casually threw the cigarette bud into the rushing river below. She watched as it grew tinier and finally disappeared into the violent waves. She swallowed hard and blinked away a few tears.

"Go away," she said, squeezing her eyes shut.

"Hey, I take this walk every morning, you can't just ask me to shove off. I was here first," said Teeks, calmly still. She opened her eyes, but kept them straight ahead, staring into the rivers below. She did _not _want to look at this stranger and his stupid blue eyes. From the corners of her eyes, she could see the other person as he stood there leaning against the railing like this was something he sees every day.

"Then walk away already," she said. "It's a morning _walk, _right, so why are you stopping? Walk away. Walk away, please. Walk away."

"No can do. Sorry."

She's frowning again as she turned to look at Teeks. He had a new unlit cigarette in his right hand and a lighter in another. He paused in the midst of lighting the cigarette up as he noticed her glare.

"It's five thirty," he simply said, as if that would explain everything, before lighting up the cigarette. The wind blew the smoke and she coughed as she inhaled the awful smell. "Five thirty, you know—"

"No, I _don't _know," she snapped, definitely annoyed now. Much to her surprise, Teeks actually grinned.

"No, of course you wouldn't, because I haven't told you what's up with five thirty yet," he said, "so I'm telling you now: at five thirty, I'd stop somewhere along this bridge and, you know, smoke cigarettes. Because that's what I do. Like, everyday. So I can't walk away, sorry."

She blinked away some more tears – just moments ago, jumping off this bridge was the only thing she had on her mind, but now this dude's suddenly here and _what the hell did he want?_

"So is this what _you _do when it's five thirty?" Teeks asked after a moment of silence.

"Wha…?"

"This," he said calmly, gesturing at her. "You, uh, stand on the wrong side of the bridge every five thirty in the morning or something?" He took a long drag and exhaled white, curly smoke from his nose before glancing down at the river below.

"Oh, yeah, sure, that's what I do _every day _at five thirty in the morning because dangling myself over this bridge makes so much sense, doesn't it?" she said without thinking. The words just came out of her mouth without her registering it.

Again, Teeks actually _smiled _when this clearly was NOT the proper time to smile. "So you do admit that dangling yourself over the bridge is a stupid thing to do, then?"

She swallowed again before turning her frown to Teeks. Well, no, really – two hours ago, this seemed to be the most logical thing to do. She was _this close _to jumping off the bridge…she really had nothing else to lose, since everything in her life was already pretty much screwed up to the point where no one could ever fix it. No, two hours ago this was _not _a bad idea – but now…but – but now…

"Having second thoughts, are we?" Teeks said, as if he had read her mind right then and there. He was still smiling – _goddammit, those eyes – _as if seeing someone attempting to end their lives was something he sees all the time. There was a hint of smugness as he said it – as if he was proud to have guessed that yes, this was a freaking hard decision for her to make. He then straightened up and stepped closer to her. "Tell you what – have you smoked before in your life?"

"I – what?"

Teeks took out the cigarette from his mouth and actually handed it over to her. "Here, have a smoke."

She was positively confused now. "Excuse me, but _I don't smoke, _thank you very much!"

"Well, if you're jumping off after this, why not smoke once in your life? You're gonna die anyway, right?"

Oh, now she could see what this was about. He was actually _challenging _her to jump off the bloody bridge. What, did he think she wouldn't do it?

"What – you – you don't think I'll do it?" she snapped.

"Nope, I don't think you'll do it," he answered – but she wasn't sure what he was referring to. No, he didn't think she'd jump; or no, he didn't think she'd smoke? She eyed the rushing waters beneath her for a while, and then—

"Give me that." She quickly let go of the railing for a brief moment to snatch the cigarette: the damned thing slipped off Teek's fingers and fell into the waters below. Terrified of falling over, she quickly grabbed the railing once more, whimpering a little as she blinked away fresh tears. She squeezed her eyes shut and titled her head back, as if praying to the heavens above. "God, please, oh please – I don't know what I'm doing – please, let this end, oh God…"

"You know what's funny, though?"

She opened her eyes to stare at Teeks. She had momentarily forgotten that there was a complete stranger standing next to her. Deep down, there was this weird feeling – she actually felt…_thankful _that someone was next to her at the moment.

"What?" she asked, her voice coming out as a shaky whisper.

"You'd think this will end everything, but in reality, it won't." Teeks wasn't looking at her – he was instead eyeing the river below, looking serious for the first time since he had first spoken to her. "When you jump – _if _you jump, of course – your body's gonna hit that water so hard, it'd hurt like hell. Then again, maybe you'd wish you're in hell because the water's gonna be so fucking cold, you won't be able to believe it. And then your lungs are gonna scream when you inhaled the water – your nose will hurt like it's nobody's business, with all that water…"

The tears were rolling off her cheeks quickly now, and she couldn't even look at the river below. She was sure that her foot was going to slip and then – oh God, and then she'd actually fall over. And die.

"And that's not even the worst part of it," Teek went on. "I mean, perhaps dying would be the worst part of it – but no, I don't think so… The worst part is when you wake up in a hospital room, three weeks after you decided to kill yourself. And then suddenly there's this embarrassment – it won't bloody hell leave you alone, trust me. You'd think, 'why did I even think of ending myself, shit, I'm so stupid.' Then everyone's gonna look at you with pitying eyes and – God, looking at your parents will be the hardest thing to do because, really, they were thinking that they'd lost their son and—"

Teeks suddenly stopped and looked at her. He sighed, fished out another cigarette from his pocket and lighted it up.

"Look," he said, "you may think I don't know what you're feeling right now – but really, trust me" (he's smiling again now, although it did seem like a sad smile) "I _completely_ understand what's going on in your head right now."

She swallowed. She was breathing hard and fast now – she had been breathing hard all this while, but she had only just realized then.

"What happened?" she asked meekly, not wanting the conversation to stop.

"See the lamppost over there?" Teeks asked, pointing at the other side of the bridge. She had to crane her neck a bit to see where he was pointing at, and nodded when she saw said lamppost. "I jumped off the bridge there three years ago."

"…What happened?" she asked again.

"Well, what d'you _think _happened?" he asked laughingly. "I hit the waters. Almost drowned. Some homeless person found me on the banks not far away the day after. Scared the shit out of my family and friends. Definitely tore my parents' hearts apart, I tell you that."

There was a pause where Teeks simply stood there, smoking his cigarette, while she dangled on the 'wrong side of the bridge.' Afterwards, she wouldn't be able to remember what made her do it, but she did it, anyway:

"I – I failed all my classes."

Teeks now turned towards her, no doubt listening carefully to her words.

"I had a fight with my best friend, I – I yelled at my boyfriend. Well…my ex now, I suppose. My chemistry lecturer definitely hates me – God, _everyone _hates me. No matter what I try to do, everything's so screwed up, I can't – I can't even – I just…feel like…" She paused, swallowed hard, and blinked away some more tears. "And they all kept saying that there's a way out of this, but they're all _lying. _They're lying – they're lying, there isn't any way out…!"

"You know, I beg to differ."

She looked over at the tall stranger. She had managed to pour out her feelings to this man, a complete stranger, and it didn't even feel weird – it felt as if they had known each other for a long, long time. He had been a very good listener without even _trying. _All those conversations she had had with her parents had been useless – not to mention the ones she had with her shrink – and yet, right here, right now, _this _conversation seemed to be working…and this Teeks Dude was a Complete Stranger.

"When you jump," Teeks said, his voice gentle, "it's over for _you, _but not for the others in your life. You think your parents would simply go, 'Oh, she's gone, _finally' _and forget you just like that? You think all your stuff – your books, your bag, your, I dunno, teddy bear – would simply disappear from your room, like you've never existed? No. No, no, no – when you _die, _see, it'd be over for _you, _but not for your friends and family. They'll be in pain. It's not fair for them...don't you think so?""

A Complete Stranger. With a pair of impossibly blue eyes.

"This is not the way out," he said kindly. "Trust me, it's not. You might be thinking, 'when I die, everything will be all right' – but that's not true at all, isn't it?"

She shook her head, crying even harder now. "No, it's not," she sobbed heavily. "It's not, it's not, _it's not_. Oh God, what am I doing?"

Teeks tossed his cigarette – he wasn't even done with it yet, but tossed it away anyway – and stood up straight. "I was thinking about getting some frozen yogurt after my morning walk – because when the morning's cold as shit, naturally you gotta go and eat something _cold _to warm yourself up, it totally makes sense, everyone knows that."

She laughed a weak laughter at this – and the world was suddenly much, much brighter.

"So." Teeks was holding out his hand to her. "Ready to come back to the Brighter, Happier, Funner side of the bridge?"

She laughed again. "'Funner' isn't a word."

"Oh, _really? _Sorry, but not everyone has impeccable vocabulary – or grammar, or whatever. C'mon, frozen yogurt's waiting. C'mon, c'mon. C'mon, give me your hand."

So she took Teek's hand – Teek's large, warm hand – and then he grabbed her other hand, and pulled her back to the Brighter, Happier and _Funner _side of the bridge.

Four years and seven months later, Takaishi Hikari and her husband would stop by the bridge every five thirty in the morning, and after he'd smoke his cigarette, they'd buy frozen yogurt at the 24-hour convenience store nearby.

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><p><strong>AN: **Not long ago, I was under the impression that everyone was lying when they say there's a way out of depression.

I'm just very happy that I was wrong.


End file.
